Lethal Encounter | FULL EPISODE | The New Detectives

in tampa florida women become a sadistic killer's prey and cemeteries is personal dumping ground as the body count rises detectives confront a serial killer using science as their only weapon in north carolina a young mother disappears on her way home from work when her body is discovered detectives must expose the hidden tracts of a killer if they are to find justice for her family in most homicides police rely on motive to pursue a murderer but when the killer is a stranger the crime may go unsolved for years it takes a full arsenal of forensic techniques to trace a lethal encounter [Applause] [Music] [Music] in this episode some of the names have been changed tampa florida october 10 1986. detective robert parish received a disturbing call a jogger had discovered the nude body of a young black woman at central espanal cemetery [Music] crime scene investigators were dispatched to the scene as they set up a perimeter detective parish questioned the jogger ron denny said he ran through the cemetery daily [Music] he rarely saw anyone [Music] but this morning was different the detective examined the body for injuries we had a new black female in an open cemetery lot here we found no signs of any cutting or stabbing anything no open wounds like that she did have a fine mist of blood on her right side appeared to come out of her nasal area this indicating that she had died either by blunt trauma or by asphyxiation on the condition of the body it appeared the victim had been murdered less than 12 hours earlier more than enough time for the killer to flee detective parish knew it would be a difficult case they had to conduct a thorough search of the crime scene [Music] as they photographed the victim they noted she was barefoot oddly the bottoms of her feet were clean the ground was moist she couldn't have walked to this location and investigators saw no evidence she was dragged [Music] the victim's personal effects were scattered all over the area each piece was numbered and cataloged as potential evidence we found her panties and top and her wig scattered throughout when we did a crime scene search the forensics team recovered a pair of women's shoes [Music] there were also beer bottles and a cigarette pack but there was no wallet or driver's license to identify the victim not far from the body investigators found fresh tire tracks detective parish surmised the victim had been killed elsewhere and dumped in the cemetery the major item that we found was nine feet from her head and the soft dirt there was a tire impression obviously made by a big tire additionally off 46th street here we had tire tracks coming in and what appeared tire tracks leaving a large vehicle a truck or an suv made the tracks technicians made casts of the tread prints using plaster based on the condition of the body investigators were confident a vehicle had been involved in the crime the plaster would set in minutes but it would take days to determine whether the tracks were significant [Music] after processing the crime scene officers canvassed the neighborhood hoping that someone might have seen or heard something the night before when was the last time i'm not sure nobody had [Music] at autopsy the medical examiner noted pitula a pinpoint hemorrhage in the victim's eyes this as well as linear abrasions on the collarbone and throat area indicated that the victim had died from asphyxiation several bones in her neck were also broken [Music] the medical examiner determined that a large individual had used his hands to manually strangle the victim [Music] ligature marks on her wrists revealed she had been bound before she was killed [Music] based on the degree of rigor mortis and the amount of insect activity the medical examiner concluded that she'd been killed less than 12 hours earlier strands of the victim's hair were collected in the event a suspect emerged it was possible a strand of her hair was still in the suspect's vehicle identifying the victim was their next priority fingerprints were taken and run through the tampa police database within hours detective perish had a match [Music] the victim was 34 year old tamara jones [Music] after i found her identity i located her mom and broke the news to her mom and didn't got as much information you get as much background information you can about their habits who she was seeing any steady boyfriends from tamara's mother detective parish learned a lot about the victim she had been an outgoing girl full of promise until the lure of crack cocaine reduced her to a life of painful addiction to pay for her habit tamara became a prostitute there was about four different bars in what we call the west tampa area that she frequent and in my job as an investigator i had to go to the bars find out who she knew who she was seeing with and just do some good legwork you know i found out that everybody spoke fairly highly of her [Music] all the people i interviewed said that she was a very good girl and she was a very good individual yeah but tamara's life on the streets put her in contact with a lot of unsavory characters no one that the police talked to was able to pinpoint a suspect in tamara's murder detective parish hit a dead end [Music] he now looked for clues and other unsolved homicide cases not only from tampa but in hillsboro county and surrounding cities [Music] it took a week to review two years worth of homicide files looking for similarities in the end detective parish was stunned by what he found detectives had been working on several reports of previous homicides and similar type victims we had other black females they were known prostitutes they were found in cemeteries [Music] they were new they were all strangled they had literature marks around their wrist which means they had been either tied up or a restraining type device used on their wrist [Music] detectives from the tampa police department and hillsborough county sheriff's office pooled their resources along with other agencies in the area they formed a task force to find and stop a killer but the lack of physical evidence found at each of the crime scenes and the lifestyle of the victims made them difficult cases to solve detective parish was certain they were dealing with a serial killer somewhere in the tampa area he was waiting to strike again and police hadn't a single clue to his [Music] identity [Music] authorities in tampa florida were certain they were dealing with a serial killer [Music] two recent homicides wore striking similarities to a string of murders that went back over two years [Music] detective robert parish knew they needed a suspect but none of the investigators working the case had even a clue all the other detectives were obviously involved in the other cases were at different stages but you know nobody really had anything concrete that we could say 100 sure several of the other detectives had different leads that they were investigating and guarding memories news reports about the latest victim caught the attention of a potential witness [Music] a man named adam childs contacted police he told them that he knew tamara jones from the tampa bar scene he had seen her the night before her body was found in the cemetery a dark truck approached tamara on the street she talked to the man inside childs had seen the vehicle in the neighborhood but he didn't know to whom it belonged for investigators the dark truck rang a bell they searched their files once again eight months earlier a prostitute claimed that a customer in a dark truck had tried to kill her the woman was afraid to press charges but she agreed to speak with police about the incident [Music] what happened inside the truck as she told investigators a large black man she knew as big mike tried to pick her up that evening they were talking about um you know something on a prize for sex and then he grabbed her around the throat and started to choke her she reached for the doorknob and then she got out ran and screaming through the neighborhood the police were called and he had fled the sink [Applause] she gave investigators descriptions of big mike and the truck he was driving but she again refused to press charges or to testify against him investigators checked their files big mike was the nickname of a tampa man named michael tyrone crump police went to crump's residence the suspect was not at home but a dark truck matching the witness's description was parked in the driveway the officer photographed the vehicle detective parish then asked adam childs to come back to the station i did what's called a photo pack i took you know six different pictures of different trucks including this individual we now become to label as a suspect and the witness immediately picked out the truck [Music] tampa police believed that michael tyrone crump had committed at least two crimes but they didn't have sufficient evidence to arrest him based on their two witnesses they did have probable cause that these crimes were committed in his truck and police have the authority to seize a vehicle if they believe it was used for illegal activities and may contain evidence of those crimes detective parish wanted to seize trump's vehicle in a public place when it was on a public roadway stopped the truck on the city street and informed uh the driver who turned out to be michael tyrone crump that we needed his uh truck for evidence it was used in a recent crime contact when you finish processing your truck i'll give you remained calm even when they asked if he knew tamara jones he said no they informed him that he was not under arrest and that he was free to go his truck was taken to the pinellas county sheriff's impound lot where it was examined by trace evidence specialist timothy whitfield as a part of searching the vehicle we were charged with finding any and all evidence that might be in there from the things that are visible to the things that might be invisible to the naked eye investigators first processed the vehicle for visible evidence they found a woman's earring on the floor of the cab [Music] they also found a wooden device with a piece of rope attached called a garat whitefield had no doubt as to its purpose it could be used to wrap the the hands or feet of victims and of course that's something that is unusual not everybody has that in their vehicle and you would ask the question well why do you need this what are you using it for if you're not using it as a restraint device hidden between the rubber matting and the tire wall investigators found another clue it was a driver's license belonging to janet king one of the young women killed prior to tamara jones her body had also been found in a cemetery [Music] since king was a prostitute and crump was a known john the item in itself could be explained away but to whitfield the location of the license was incriminating either it was intentionally placed there by the suspect to hide it or perhaps the victim put it there in hopes that in days to come someone would would find something of her in that vehicle now the team focused on evidence invisible to the human eye they used a chemical called luminol to test for the presence of blood a phosphorescent glow revealed a fine spray the pattern was familiar it matched the blood spatter from tamara jones's nose and face [Music] unfortunately the droplets were tiny no larger than pinpoints there was no way to prove they belonged to the victim there was nothing that i was able to do because of the microscopic nature of the blood that of course was prior to the days of dna and you needed quite a bit more blood to do complete workups [Music] investigators vacuumed the interior of the truck searching for any hair or fibers that could link the victims to the suspect [Music] one intriguing find was a long knife hidden behind the front seat of the [Music] truck that's pretty good good surface though [Music] i'll go ahead and secure this all right in the laboratory forensic examiners determined that the rope on the garat was the same diameter as the ligature marks found on the wrists of the victims perhaps one of the most important pieces of evidence was a long strand of hair one that couldn't have come from the suspect analysis of the root showed that it had not just fallen out it had been ripped out of the scalp the hair strand was compared to samples taken from tamara jones the color and texture didn't match when it was compared with janet king's hair however it matched [Music] both were colored with identical hair dye technicians were confident that they had come from the same person [Music] while the evidence from inside the truck was compelling all it proved was that janet king had been inside the vehicle now detectives needed to tie michael tyrone crump's vehicle to the murders time was running out without solid evidence trump would remain free and more women could wind up dead authorities in tampa florida were certain they were dealing with a serial killer two recent homicides bore striking similarities to a string of murders that went back more than two years [Music] detective robert parish needed to connect tamara jones murder to suspect michael crump's truck tire tracks left at the scene were his best hope [Music] he sent the tire casts made at the crime scene along with the vehicle's tires to the florida department of law enforcement [Music] there analyst oral woods studied the treads to see if trump's truck had made the impressions found near tamara jones's body woods was surprised that crump's truck had three different types of tires the two front tires had similar treads the rear tires had different tread designs two of the tread designs on crump's tires matched the tread designs and the casts made at the crime scene and i told detective paris that we're definitely in the ballpark we definitely could do something with them that there was class characteristics present in the cast as well as some individual characteristics class characteristics like tire size and tread design can indicate a specific manufacturer by carefully comparing photographs woods determined that the tire tracks at the crime scene had identical class characteristics to crump's rear tires he then analyzed the casts and the tires for individual characteristics things like nicks treadwear or embedded pieces of gravel that can make a tire track as unique as a fingerprint [Music] on the right rear tire he found what he was looking for i found one area on the tire that had some cuts and nicks which i was also able to find on the plaster cast that was poured at the crime scene i went one step further i made a plastic cast of that area and recorded the same individual characteristics woods confirmed that the tire track found at the crime scene was made by the suspect's right rear tire on february 7th michael crump went to the tampa police department to ask about getting his truck back but first detective parrish had some important questions for him [Music] like how a woman he'd been seen with on october 9th was found dead the next day and why his tire tracks were found several feet from her body crump again denied knowing tamara jones he claimed that he'd been working in the area and cut through the cemetery the night before the murder let me show you something what was found in your truck you see that that's her license and that was found but when the detective brought out one more piece of evidence janet king's driver's license crump was surprised and sensed that he had been caught he's a big guy and he had he slumped his shoulders down and looked down which indicated to me that i had with the license she wanted him the license that i had struck a nerve crump admitted to picking up tamara jones on the night in question he claimed they fought and the tamara had tried to stab him he admitted to strangling her but swore it was in self-defense to the detective trump's version of her death could not explain the restraint device and ligature marks left on the victim the evidence pointed to a well-planned mo that crump had used before detectives next questioned crump about the murder of janet king he admitted to once having picked her up but claimed she left him within minutes he said he knew nothing about the other seven victims they didn't buy his explanations all indications are that because of the other black females turned up a similar type death that he was involved in those we were able to tie him a hundred percent to two of the homicides that were similar but not enough evidence to time to the others in separate trials trump was found guilty of the murders of both tamara jones and janet king he received two life sentences without the possibility of parole the other murder cases remain officially unsolved michael tyrone crump attacked women he randomly selected from the streets but in north carolina an innocent encounter with a stranger ends in violence and death on august 8 1990 a raleigh north carolina police officer responded to a report about a suspicious minivan parked on a side street the officer called in the tag numbers the vehicle was registered to 24 year old katie valoria an employee at a nearby hospital the previous evening katie's husband had reported her missing [Music] the officer made a gruesome discovery inside the van was the new dead body of a young woman [Music] as police cordoned off the area crime scene investigators arrived on the scene detective john beasley examined the van indications were looking through the windows there was a struggle inside the van based on the fact that her shoes were located in the front part of the van her body is in the back of the van painting hose were around her neck they had been pulled tight they weren't knotted or anything but they were they were still tight around her neck it was obvious she had been strangled the victim's clothing and purse were missing there was also evidence suggesting sexual assault investigators scoured the exterior of the van for clues a canine team was called in to assist [Music] the handler gave the dog the scent and commanded him to track the dog led the handler down the street and away from the van crime scene investigator w.e hensley was part of the search team basically it told us that whoever parked that van there this early in the morning got out of the van on the driver's side went up to the street to the employee parking gate of the hospital went by that gate and went to an area where there was a parking space and that was significant it appeared the attack had started here police searched the area but found no additional clues the van was taken to the raleigh police impound lot where the body was removed for autopsy i felt that in moving the van we would remove the entire crime scene with the body in it and move it to a location where it could be processed properly hensley didn't want to lose any critical hair or fiber evidence by opening the van under less than ideal conditions every crime scene tells a story the time of day the ambient conditions who was the victim what kind of signature might have been left by the suspect as far as processing the vehicle we felt that trace evidence which is hairs fibers things of that nature were going to be very important to the case of course you never rule out the possibility of fingerprints or any other kind of impressions that you might get they dusted for prints but only found a few useless smudges the killer it appeared had tried to wipe his prints before abandoning the vehicle whoever went into that vehicle left some of their self there and then took some of that vehicle with them and so we were looking for any traces of those two criteria in the front seat they found a pair of women's shoes [Music] they were scraped on both the heel and toe [Music] a set of jumper cables was also found in the front seat [Music] the jumper cables indicated that possibly the victim uh was in the process of helping someone with a with a vehicle problem probably in the parking lot on the driver's floor mat investigators spotted muddy footprints there was an impression on these mats it appeared to be that of a tennis shoe we felt possibly that may be of value to us but the mats had to be handled with extreme care what we had to be concerned with is that the mats are flexible in flexing the mats or moving them about much you were going to you were going to actually distort the impression left in mud so we had to keep them perfectly flat place them in boxes and tape them over so that we could transport these without disturbing the impressions [Music] technicians searched for trace evidence any hair or fiber adhering to the tape lift would be preserved and examined [Music] they found some hairs embedded in the ceiling of the van they were inconsistent with the victim's hair which meant they could belong to her killer detectives theorized that the killer had climbed on top of the victim and rubbed his head against the ceiling of the van investigator hensley began to piece together a profile of the killer from all indications he was in the employee parking lot and therefore may be associated with the victims to some extent and they worked at the same place at autopsy the medical examiner observed contusions on the victim's neck and determined she had been strangled to death strands of hair were removed and placed in an envelope the hairs went to the crime lab where analysts could compare them to other strands found during the investigation there was also evidence of sexual assault the examiner collected samples of biological fluids found on the victim a brutal rapist and violent killer was loose on the streets of raleigh north carolina detectives had to find him before he could strike again in north carolina police investigated the violent rape and murder of a 24 year old wife and mother with little information and no witnesses detectives went to the hospital where katie valoria worked [Music] according to her colleagues katie was well liked and had no enemies on the night of her death she left work just before 6 pm the co-worker described katie as a devoted wife and mother [Music] she got along well with everyone in the workplace katie's colleagues said she couldn't imagine katie having a single enemy in the world a colleague who left moments later didn't see her or any strange individuals in the parking lot without any witnesses investigators would have to try a new approach since katie's purse was not in her car the killer might have stolen her credit cards detective beasley contacted her bank and learned that on the night of the murder someone used her cash card three times at the same atm we got dollars out the first time you used it and that was all you could write at that time from a cash point so on one day is 100 he went back tried to use it again and then tried to use it a third time detectives retrieved the atm security camera photos but they were too blurry to identify the man using the machine between the first and second transaction another customer used the machine the man told police that he remembered the encounter vividly [Music] a young black man had just made a withdrawal when he arrived but he didn't seem to be finished with his business he was standing next to him when he got the hundred dollars out then he saw the guy trying to use the card again he said he was acting suspicious because he was wondering why it was taking him so long he'd already seen him take the money out so he knew he couldn't do it but one time and here he is up there trying to use it again the witness gave a police sketch artist information regarding the suspect's height weight coloring and facial features [Music] now armed with a detailed description investigators went to the hospital someone recognized the face it looked like a man who worked in the hospital laundry [Music] the laundry room supervisor confirmed that the picture resembled 23 year old michael sexton his timesheet showed that he'd been on the job the day of katie's murder but disappeared that afternoon she said he returned around 6 30. he's been missing for like two hours and all of a sudden he comes running into the hospital says he's got to go home he's been having car trouble and books and he doesn't show up for work on thursday and friday to the detectives michael sexton was acting like a man with something to hide but they were still a long way from linking him to katie's rape and murder detectives went to the home that sexton shared with his girlfriend who allowed them to search the residence they collected some of his uniforms and pairs of tennis shoes according to w e hensley we collected three pairs of tennis shoes and we took those all into our possession and of course they were marked as potential evidence items and we took those back to our lab to analyze for any possible matches the suspect's shoes and the muddy floor mats were sent to the wake county identification bureau there johnny leonard specializes in footprint analysis there's one thing about criminals they may put on gloves they can put stockings over their faces but hardly anybody thinks about their feet because that's what you run with that's what you walk on so i always believe that footprints are is the most overlooked evidence at crime scenes leonard studied the muddy footprints looking first for class characteristics like tread pattern he then looked for individual characteristics like cuts or gouges next he studied the three pairs of sneakers taken from the suspect's home looking at the footprints i could easily say that two of the sets of shoes did not make those tracks because you can obviously look at them and see that the class characteristics were not the same but the third pair was a similar size and make as the print from the crime scene leonard dusted the bottom of the shoe with magnetic powder then with a wide piece of tape he lifted the sole design and adhered it to a backing card the card was placed in a large camera where it would be photographed and transferred to a transparency once it was developed they could lay the transparency over the photograph of the mat for a comparison but that would take time they still needed to locate sexton who hadn't been seen in days detectives in north carolina worked around the clock investigating the brutal murder of 24 year old wife and mother katie viloria a man named michael sexton had been identified as a suspect but had yet to be located [Music] at the crime lab latent print examiner johnny leonard had lifted latent shoe prints from the evidence taken from the crime scene he placed a transparency of the suspect sneaker print over a transfer of the floor mat from the victim's car leonard compared individual characteristics and finally found what he was looking for there was a little cut at the arch of one of the treadwear designs that was present also on the known shoes so without a doubt we knew that it was the same made from the same shoe investigators had evidence that tied the perpetrator to the vehicle but still had nothing putting him in contact with the victim while latent shoe prints are usually obtained from flat objects at a crime scene even irregular surfaces can yield the occasional clue leonard applied magnetic powder to the upper sole and heel of the victim's shoe and lo and behold a very small portion of a shoe track appeared he set the partial shoe print on a backing card and compared it to the full size print of the suspect sneaker the partial print from katie valoria's shoe matched a portion of the suspect's shoe print without a doubt the suspect had been in contact with the victim personally police went to the home that sexton shared with his girlfriend according to detective beasley [Music] the detectives located michael sexton at that point we told him that we were talking to people at the hospital and it was his turn would he come down and talk with us about what he agreed to do at the police department sexton was cooperative he agreed to give biological samples for testing sexton swabbed the inside of his mouth to give a dna sample and he willingly allowed for hairs to be taken these two would be compared in the lab [Music] criminalist tensley recognized the importance of the evidence [Music] what we were dealing with and what we felt we were dealing it with as far as evidence potential in this particular vehicle was blood body fluids hairs fibers clothing and those are the things that we concentrated on using a comparison microscope examiners looked for similarities between two hair samples color length and diameter are among the major features analyzed the known sample taken from the victim at autopsy and the unknown sample from the victim's van were compared side by side the analysis confirmed the victim was not the source of the hair found in the van [Music] but when the hair from the victim's van was compared to the sample taken from the suspect it was practically a perfect match that wasn't the only evidence placing michael sexton in the back of katie valoria's van to fully process the clothing taken from sexton's house technicians laid the clothing out across a wide table using clear adhesive tape they combed every inch of fabric for hair and fibers fibers from the victim's van were found on the suspect's clothing and fibers from the clothing were found in the van investigators still needed to determine if the suspect's dna matched the biological fluids found on the victim certainly the body fluids that we found on the victim's body have the potential for dna analysis and they they are more or less a positive form of identification other than fingerprints if you can't find fingerprints that certainly is one of the better forms of identification to analyze the suspect's dna samples scientists used a process called electrophoresis to separate specific enzymes out of each sample certain enzymes vary from person to person electrophoresis utilizes an electric current to separate the enzymes for analysis the sample is placed in a gel and a current is applied causing the enzymes to move through the gel [Music] each enzyme moves a certain distinct distance creating a pattern of bands if two blood samples create the same pattern it's probable they came from the same source in this case they matched at the police station detectives confronted sexton with the evidence he denied everything as the interview went on he kept digging a little bit deeper hole for himself and denying that he even knew her and i think then he started looking for kind of an out something that would make him look in the best light sexton told police that he was having car trouble he said that the victim offered to drive him to his cousins to get some jumper cables and he said he when he got around there that she uh consented to have sex with him and and then when they got in the back of the van she changed her mind and he knew she had seen his name tag and all that was gonna report him detectives knew there was more to the story they believed that sexton used his car trouble as bait fueled by a criminal appetite he took advantage of katie's kindness and overpowered her the people of the state of north carolina convicted michael sexton of first-degree murder and rape he received the death sentence and was executed in november 2001. when a killer and a victim share no personal history detectives can find themselves working in the dark but for investigators committed to finding justice no piece of evidence is too small today forensic science can uncover a murder and bring to light evidence of a lethal encounter [Music] you

Channel: The New Detectives

Views: 267,803

Keywords: The New Detectives, New Detectives, New Detectives Full Episode, Full Episodes, New Detectives Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True Crime Daily, Unsolved, FBI, FBI Files, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Unsolved True Crime, Mystery, Solved, Investigation, Police, Criminal, Forensics, Forensic Science, Science

Id: UHxbQC6ZLoA

Length: 48min 54sec (2934 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 24 2021